Many times I'm asked if it's OK to "adjust" yourself or if it causes problems. The fact is there are both good and bad ways to go about helping yourself in between your regular chiropractic adjustments.

Have you ever seen anyone grab their chin with one hand, the top of their head with the other and twist, pull and push? Yikes! That's a disaster waiting to happen.

Why? Because there is no specificity directed at the bone and joint that has the problem. In this scenario it's far different than what your chiropractor does because he or she will touch and contact the problem area directly, ensuring that the gentle push goes where its needed. It's specific.

So what to do? Let's say you have a kink in your neck when you turn your head to the right and you can't get into the chiropractor for a day or two, here's how you can help yourself. The secret is going to revolve around creating proper movement in the problem area.

In this scenario you would turn your head to the right until you feel the problem area engage. Then you would practice your cardinal movements directly through that particular movement area. In this case you would perform a series of neck flexion / extension (forward and backward bending) exercises. Perhaps sets of 10 or 20 repetitions. Immediately following, you would do sets of lateral flexion (bending ear toward shoulder) to the left and right. Both of these are while you are maintaining your head at the original point of right rotation which was problematic.

Following this you should be able to perform the initial movement of left and right rotation with much less aggravation in the problem joint area. You have restored some of the motion that is almost always missing when a joint is not functioning properly.

All of these motions should be perfectly safe to perform, as you should not be able to perform any damaging movement while under the control of your own muscles.

While this isn't going to be as thorough and restorative as a proper adjustment, you should find this to be helpful on many occasions. Remember that motion is life.

If you're looking for an even more advanced protocol, simply ask at your next spinal tune-up and you can learn even more.